'Valentine Rose' Nebula Blooms in Deep Space (Photo)

The odd planetary nebula, Sh2-174 is shaped like a rose floating in space.

Credit: NOAO/AURA/NSF

A strange nebula in deep space shines like a cosmic rose in a new photo unveiled just in time for Valentine's Day.

The new image, released Wednesday (Feb. 13) by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, may look like a wispy space flower, but it is actually an odd planetary nebula called Sh2-174.

Aplanetary nebulais one of the last stages of life for most mid-sized stars. Once a star runs out of fuel, it begins to collapse in on itself, creating the clouds of red and blue in the photo.

As the star sheds layers, it forms into a white dwarf — a densely packed star that has the mass of the sun, but is stuffed into a volume about the size of the Earth.

"Usually the white dwarf can be found very near the center of the planetary nebula," NOAO officials said in a statement. "But in the case of Sh2-174 it is off to the right." [Valentine's Day in Space: Cosmic Photos]

The white dwarf star appears as a very blue star in the center of the blue region of gas in the new image. The off-kilter star arrangement is likely the result of interactions between the nebula and its surroundings, scientists said.

Astronomer Travis Rector, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Alaska in Anchorage, took this photo using a 13-foot (4 meters) telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. He used four different filters designed to approximate colors that the human eye can see.

The strange positioning of the white dwarf probably has something to do with the way the nebula is interacting with the interstellar medium, NOAO officials said. The white dwarf is the bright prick of light in the middle of the blue gas on the right side of the picture.

The new NOAO image is not the only space Valentine's Day offering for romantically inclined astronomy buffs.

Space fans can send out electronic Valentine's Day cards with a space twist courtesy of the European Space Agency and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

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Miriam Kramer joined Space.com as a staff writer in December 2012. Since then, she has floated in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight, felt the pull of 4-Gs in a trainer aircraft and watched rockets soar into space from Florida and Virginia. She also serves as Space.com's lead space entertainment reporter, and enjoys all aspects of space news, astronomy and commercial spaceflight.

Miriam has also presented space stories during live interviews with Fox News and other TV and radio outlets. She originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee where she and her family would take trips to dark spots on the outskirts of town to watch meteor showers every year. She loves to travel and one day hopes to see the northern lights in person. You can follow Miriam on Twitter and Google+.